What is the deal with these people who are super-successful offline (e.g. Chamath, Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk), but on social media have such mediocre, cringe, or bad opinions, getting easily-verifiable facts wrong or just repeating sale or boring stuff, or digging in when wrong? Why is there such a large disconnect between being so successful in one domain (e.g. creating companies) and the ability to produce good, well-informed opinions online?
My answer: People who are really successful offline tend to be specialists--they find something that works, and then scale or repeat it. People who have "good opinions about a broad range of topics" are generalists, but this does not necesailty lead to large wealth, which typically requires specialization.
Generalists tend to be higher IQ and get bored more easily, seeking novelty, but this comes at the cost mastery at a skill to become wealthy. Becoming a billionaire at running restaurants means knowing everything about the restaurant industry--perhaps not exactly intellectually simulating work--but necessary for success. Specialists can be really smart, but I would say generalists are smarter in the aggregate. There is no "industry person" who is as broadly read about history and other humanists topics as Moldbug, for example, as the ultimate generalist.
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Notes -
I feel like you are conflating your assessment of an opinion being "mediocre, cringe, or bad" with that opinion being wrong in some objectively measurable way.
Just how confident are you that you know better than Elon Musk? How do you justify that confidence?
Me? Not that confident. I think I fall more in the specialist category myself. But I am confident the likes of Tyler Cowen, Moldbug, Noah Smith, Matt Yglesias, Richard Hanania, etc. are better informed about a wider range of issues and are better at articulating their positions. But if Elon was better at articulating his opinions or if he put more thought into what he says, he would be even more effective. Imagine if he wrote a 3000-word opinion piece demonstrating a interdisciplinary mastery of the issues. This would elevate the weight of his ideas and get the attention of intellectuals and other serious/influential people.
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